Congratulations to Michael Bailey of the Enterprise papers, who won this year’s informal competition to write the story of the first alewife to appear on Cape Cod. Old master John Leaning, formerly of the Cape Cod Times, was the leader of the pack for years, with an occasional incursion by The Cape Codder. The race to announce the first herring of the season usually results in a winner sometime in March, but Bailey reported that a “ripe” creature, ready to spawn, turned up in Falmouth’s Trunk River Jan. 29.

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Did you know there’s a Peyton Place in Falmouth?

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We doubt that the people of a certain Cape town are ethically lax, even though their local paper referred in a headline to their “Principle Planner.” Remember, “The principal is your pal.”

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Uniform mania struck Falmouth Public Schools’ Lawrence School and has spread next door to Mashpee where, the Enterprise informs us, there’s an on-line parent survey about requiring uniform attire. The mother of a fourth grader wrote to the paper protesting the idea, suggesting it was tantamount to “putting a label” on students. “If the administration feels this is such a good idea,” she wrote, “maybe they should try it and honestly tell us how productive and creative they feel at the end of the day.”

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Eastham builder Nate Nickerson, who owns Arnold’s Clam and Lobster Bar, believes in turnips, especially the vaunted Eastham variety. The Cape Codder reports that he wants the town to let him farm a turnip patch on one of the 10 acres of municipal land reserved for a senior housing development. He would donate any profits to a local charity.

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We’d suggest folks who believe that, as one told The Mashpee Enterprise, “The town is Mashpee Commons,” dig a little deeper into the community’s history and Native American heritage. The speaker wants to move town hall to a location near the Commons and create a network of town-owned recreation land around the development.

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Provincetown’s Barbara Rushmore is known for sharing her strong opinions at Town Meeting and in the pages of the Banner. In January, she took on the National Park Service for what she described as steps to block the view of the ocean from the Race Point and Herring Cove parking lots. “The National Park Service loves Yellowstone and the western national parks,” she wrote to the local paper. “That’s why we have split-rail fences and huge rocks, trucked in at huge cost to make our 100 percent sand-spit heaven on earth look like someplace else.”

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A fellow fleeing the police in Bourne thought he’d escaped when he waded into a pond, but his intrepid pursuer hopped in a canoe and got his man, the Enterprise reported.

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We’re sure that a Cape weekly didn’t intend a double meaning when it headlined a story “Fence could be ahead for auto body shop.”

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Three hundred years is a big deal, but not if your people have been around for 10,000. That’s how The Cape Cod Chronicle’s Alan Pollock reported that the Chatham Wampanoag Circle is getting the word out that “we still live here,” according to chair Jill James. The group will be a presence as the town celebrates its tercentennial; a guide to sites, “Chatham Monomoyick Trail,” is in the works.

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Will Truro erase what some consider a blot on Edward Hopper’s “canvas?” The town’s building commissioner has given Andrea Kline until late April to complete removal of her controversial 8,000-square-feet-plus house near the artist’s former summer home, according to The Cape Codder. Appeals of that order have been filed with the courts and the local zoning board.

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Thanks to Provincetown Banner correspondent Deborah Minsky for introducing us to Leroy Atkins, a retired pressman for the old Provincetown Advocate and, it turns out, our own Barnstable Patriot. Born in Provincetown, Atkins resides in Orleans but has been receiving extended care at Liberty Commons in Chatham. “I truly miss the days of the linotype and typewriter, as well as the Thursday (and earlier) deadline,” he told the Banner. “I am now the sole survivor of the staffs when I was there.”

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“Flash” mobs have appeared on the Cape before, including a memorable appearance by the Community of Jesus Spirit of America Band at the Orleans Stop ‘n Shop. Now comes news, via The Cape Cod Chronicle, of a “cash” mob whose members swept into a Chatham store in lonely January and each spent $20 or more.

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We don’t get to see Nantucket’s venerable Inquirer and Mirror much these days, so were unaware that the flapping broadsheet has been reduced to a more manageable size. An excursion through its pages makes it clear that Fitzgerald was right: the rich are different from you and me. In one issue, readers learned of a controversial Island developer who committed suicide in a Spanish jail while awaiting extradition on murder charges in Connecticut; a newspaper contest offering first (Bermuda Cruise), second (Boston Getaway), and third (Hyannis Break) prizes; and a house for sale for almost $20 million. But editor Marianne Stanton noted the drastically smaller number of builders, and the consequences for coffee shops and restaurants. Retail, she wrote, “is truly suffering.” So maybe Hemingway had it right after all – the rich aren’t different, they just have more money.

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The Enterprise papers had what could be described as a National Lampoon moment last month when they ran an Ed Canty cartoon showing a baby sitting up in a hospital nursery. The precocious lad, peeking under his blanket, addressed the infant next to him thusly: “Hey, I’m a boy! How about yourself?”

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Truro Fire Captain Shannon Corea risked a kick from a panicked deer that had fallen into an old well hole, descending into the pit to rope the poor creature so it could be lifted out and released. We assume she’s a shoo-in for a hero award from the Animal Rescue League or a wildlife organization.

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It’s the first last for a collector of firsts, according to the Enterprise. Martha McGonagle, the first female patrolman, sergeant, and lieutenant of the Bourne Police Department, retired after 36 years.

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Brewster reveres its sea captains, Dan Secor told his fellow townspeople in a letter to The Cape Codder, but apparently only if they’re in their graves. A captain himself with the U.S. Merchant Marine, Secor says he was put out of work by the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and applied for a hardship shellfishing license from the Town of Brewster. The experience wasn’t a pleasant one. It’s one thing to respect the captains of yore, he wrote, but “… when one of their own present day captains has trouble putting dinner on the table, all that is forgotten.”

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Barry Johnson of Bourne, who served as the county administrator a couple of decades ago, is running for a fourth term as his community’s town clerk. According to the Enterprise, the former selectman is also chairman of the community preservation committee.

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We’re sure some Cape Codders who’ve wanted to send one of their selectmen to the bottom chuckled at the unintentionally humorous headline in a Cape weekly: “Further Advice Sought From Attorney Concerning Selectmen Mooring Authority.”

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A student’s life was vastly different in 1974, when Janice Mills joined the Mashpee School Committee. Seventh and eighth graders attended classes at Otis Air Force Base, the Enterprise recalled, and their elders went to high school in Falmouth. Stepping down after 38 years of service, Mills reflected on the town’s decision in the 1990s to build its own high school. “it was as true then as it is today,” she said. “It is amazing how supportive the seniors are of education in this town. I guess I have to put myself in that category now.” The first hopeful to take out nomination papers to succeed Mills is a 20-year-old collegian.

Sports writers can get caught up in the details of games and not deliver the unique stories of the players. Showing a better way is Amanda Wright of the Bourne High Dispatch, who penned this gem: “At 4 years old, Bourne High School Basketball Captain Blade Leavenworth, a junior, picked up a rubber ball painted bright orange and dunked it into a Fisher Price hoop. When he heard the swish he was hooked.”

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When Charlie Sumner became Brewster’s town administrator, as The Cape Codder’s Rich Eldred put it, “Geraldo Rivera had just opened Al Capone’s vault, Gov. Michael Dukakis was pondering running for president and Mookie Wilson’s ground ball was a few days away from rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs.” If we may, we’d like to add that Sumner’s tenure has been much more satisfactory than those disappointing events.

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Sometimes a head shot is just a head shot, but sometimes it’s a character study. Kudos to the Falmouth Enterprise’s Christopher Kazarian for his portrait of a starchy-looking candidate for the town’s conservation commission. A civil engineer, the hopeful told selectmen that “he tends to side with humans versus the animals,” as the reporter put it. “You are inviting the fox to the chicken coop,” the candidate declared. The board thanked him for his candor and made him an alternate member.

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Cape Cod National Seashore Supt. George Price directed that five federally owned but privately enjoyed camps on Chatham’s barrier beach be demolished before they fall into the sea. Six other North Beach cottages are privately owned, according to The Cape Cod Chronicle. Last-ditch attempts for stop-work orders or to create a state historic district consisting of the 11 houses appeared to have failed as interior demolition began this week.

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Good for the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School student council, which hosted a real “senior” prom last month at the town’s senior center. Teenagers chatted with sixty-, seventy- and eightysomethings before hitting the dance floor, The Register reported. Our vote for the money quote? The student council’s treasurer’s: “One lady said it was the first time she had danced in the 12 years since her husband died.”